Offensive linesman Carl Nicks was drafted into the NFL by the New Orleans Saints in the 2009 season, starting all 16 regular season games and helping the Saints win their first Super Bowl title. In 2013, Nicks signed a five-year $47.5 million deal with the rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the start of an unarguably bright career. That same year, however, Nicks contracted a potentially deadly infection that required surgery and benched him for the season. While he didn’t directly attribute his decision to the infection, the guard in June reached a $3 million settlement agreement with Buccaneers and recently announced his decision to “step away from the game.”
Early in the 2013 season Nicks suffered a toe injury as part of a Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus areus (MRSA) infection he and two other teammates, Lawrence Tynes and Johnthan Banks, contracted at the Buccaneers facility. Fast-forward to date and Nicks has indefinitely left the football field. Tynes’ football career also appears to be over, and Banks is expected to compete for a starting job.
Nicks’ recent settlement and departure of the game corrals MRSA back into the spotlight, as it should be. MRSA is a bacterial infection that according to the Mayo Clinic has become resistant to antibiotics commonly used to treat ordinary staph infections. While the majority of infections occur in hospitals or healthcare settings, MRSA can be found in community settings that involve crowding or skin-to-skin contact and/or share equipment such as schools, daycares, locker rooms and gyms.
Good personal hygiene such as frequent hand/body washing, not sharing personal items like towels or razors, and keeping wounds clean and covered reduces the risk of MRSA infection. In hospitals, the same prevention practices can reduce MRSAs and other Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) by up to 70%, though the annual costs of treating hospitalized MRSA patients are still estimated to be between $3.2 billion and $4.2 billion in the United States alone.
MRSA-infected patients are likely to spend three times as long in a hospital stay at three times the cost, and are five times more likely to die than an uninfected patient. The statistics reveal a dire need for early detection of MRSA, though no such cost-effective device is currently available.
Under an agreement with leading European sensor developer Sgenia Group, Spain-based Zenosense is working to fill this medical need, developing an MRSA detection device designed to act like a “smoke detector” for MRSA. The system is expected to detect MRSA in the environment or infected patient, even before a patient demonstrates any obvious symptoms. After the alert, healthcare personnel can take appropriate measures to quarantine and eliminate the bacteria.
The Zenosense device utilizes Sgenia’s established programming and patent-pending hardware, operating a single sensor to perform an infinite number of scans and creating tens of thousands of “virtual sensors.” Zenosense’s intention is that the device will be worn by individuals and placed in numerous sensitive areas in the healthcare setting.
Heading up the Zenosense team is a management team strongly experienced in high-level marketing in the medical sector. Zenosense is also supported by a scientific/development team of qualified personnel with extensive knowledge and experience in the development of sensors.
The potential for Zenosense’s MRSA detection device is huge. Not just for the company, but for the public masses as well. The device has the potential to not only provide the healthcare system with billions of dollars in savings, but more importantly has the potential to save human lives. While it may be too late for the football careers of Nicks and Tynes, the threat of MRSA on the athletic field may have finally met its match.
For more information, visit: www.zenosense.net
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